


we will be well

by magisterequitum



Category: Psy-Changeling - Nalini Singh
Genre: F/M, Missing Scene
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-22
Updated: 2014-06-22
Packaged: 2018-02-05 17:10:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,668
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1825849
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/magisterequitum/pseuds/magisterequitum
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He may be alpha but even before she has never folded under him. She will not do so now. Psy families are born of contracts, but even then there is equality in partnership. She cannot believe that an alpha and his mate would be anything less than that basic foundation.</p>
            </blockquote>





	we will be well

**Author's Note:**

  * For [tosca1390](https://archiveofourown.org/users/tosca1390/gifts).



> Hello! 
> 
> I was excited to get this assignment. I wanted to try and do a piece that filled in the missing scenes, and flesh out these two exploring one another and working and coming together. I hope I managed to do that here.

Sascha is too tired to do much of anything after the healing session with Brenna. 

She is aware of slowly moving herself away from the medical room, still able to give a faint smile at the sight of the wolf changeling now awake and surrounded by her family and alpha. Her shields are depleted, too much energy exerted. She is stripped away and their warmth and relief makes her heart ache. It's a soft bruising, the feeling. 

She murmurs something in response to the thanks that are hastily given to her retreating form as Lucas wraps an arm around her waist and steers her away. There are more important things than a thank-you at the moment. Sentiments like that can wait. 

As it is, she does well to follow the gentle pushing of Lucas into their vehicle. She sinks into the seat and then leans against the door, letting her weight rest there. The window's glass is cool against her sweaty heated skin. 

"Sascha," Lucas says, waking her with a hand to her cheek when they are back in DarkRiver lands. "Are you alright?" 

Her muscles protest the act of unfolding herself from the vehicle and stepping out. "I'm fine," she answers, trying to reassure him despite her voice being raspy. 

There had been no question when the wolves had asked her to help Brenna. No other answer for her to give except to say yes. How could she not go? But she's reminded again that she has no training or guide, and everything has been done on instinct. The last several days have used so very much of her up. 

Lucas peers down at her, hands cupping her elbows, and she can feel his worry across the bond as a very tangible thing. 

"I'm fine. I need to sleep." She does not touch him on her own, but neither does she lean away from his hands. 

Sascha doesn't protest when he carries her up into the aerie, and it's too easy for her to fall asleep quickly once in the bed.

 

 

 

When she wakes, it has been nine hours. 

Sascha knows because the sun filtering into the aerie is positioned so as to say it is late afternoon. She remembers that they’d returned from the SnowDancer den early in the morning. Nine hours is longer than she usually ever sleeps; her abilities, at least up until now, have never required her to sleep for very long to regroup, and most Psy can function with around five hours. Their race thrives on productivity. Sleep is an impediment to that ideal. 

Lucas is not next to her but she can feel him, knows he has not left. His presence is a hard knot at her sternum. 

She blinks grit from her eyes and shifts the comforter down past her chest so she can take stock. Noise filters in and she hears water from the shower. The sheets beside her are still warm, so he must have recently left her side. 

It is automatic and routine to rise, setting her feet down on the floor and stretching out the stiffness of her limbs. Lucas has dressed her in one of his shirts and the cotton feels clean and nice on her skin. She puts a pair of his sweatpants on, the one’s she’s seen him wear after shifting, and rolls the waist band up twice. She leaves him to his shower, going to the kitchen unit. 

Her head feels jumbled with so many thoughts. Things she needs to process and parse out. It would be easier to right them all down, maybe, she thinks. But that seems too much like her old life, the life she had just days ago. Then again so much of Lucas’s world remains unknown to her as well. 

She is stuck in the middle and does not like the thought of that. 

“Sascha,” Lucas’s voice washes over her back just as she opens the cooling unit in search of food. He does not have any Psy nutritional bars. An annoyance since that type of food would replenish her energy the quickest. He rubs his knuckles between her shoulder blades. “Are you okay?”

“I’m fine,” she answers immediately. 

She recognizes the sharpness of her tone, but does not seek to ease it. It is apparent to her that she cannot be anything but. She’s reminded there in the kitchen, in what is now supposed to be _their_ home that they are bonded. She is his mate and he is hers, but she did not ask for this and he took it. She cannot forget that. Yesterday there had been other things to think on, things for her to do. There exists no other distraction now. 

Sliding away from his touch, she turns around, finds that in the reflection of his sharp green gaze her eyes have lost their white stars. “I need nutrition to replace my energy levels. You do not have anything suitable.” 

Something sparks in Lucas’s eyes, tension pulling the lines of his face tight. He reaches a hand up to touch her cheek, fingerpads warm on her face. Waits to see if she will pull away from that. 

Sascha doesn’t. Touch is important to changelings. She knows this. But she also knows that she is tired still and she cannot give in. “Perhaps Tamsyn would have something for me.” 

He blinks and when his lashes rise again that heat is gone. “Alright. She should look at you anyway. Make sure you are okay.” 

She doesn’t bother to correct him that she knows herself better. 

 

 

 

Tammy brings her pasta and strangely enough, bananas. 

“I can make some vitamin rich broth for you later. This is just what I had quick,” she says, setting it down on the small table in front of the aerie’s many cushions. “You should eat all of it though.” 

Sascha does as directed, reaching for a fork and spearing the noodles. Lemon and something else coats her tongue, the flavors bright. There’s chicken mixed in too. “Thank you,” she says after she’s had a few bites. “This will do well.” 

The other woman remains standing, staring down at her with a worried look in her eyes. It’s just them inside, Lucas pacing around the forest floor, or maybe talking with Nate. “Does this happen often?” Tammy asks. 

She takes another bite, making sure chicken is included. A nutrient drink too would help. She thinks that while Lucas and the others may not like the Psy and anything related to them, it will still be useful to have some of the food specifically designed for her at the ready. “Our abilities burn the calories that our body stores. I have never before exerted myself to this degree.” She pauses, unsure if she should divulge her next bit of information, but Tammy is Pack and she wants to trust her. “There are those of us, with more demanding abilities, that burn faster. They have to constantly replace their energy stores.”

“You sound like batteries.” 

Smiling is a new concept, but Tammy’s tease sparks the smallest one. “That is not a bad comparison. Our bodies host our abilities. It seems my exertions have drained me.” 

“Will this be enough?” There’s an undercurrent of frustration in Tammy’s tone, in the way her fingers twitch where she’s clasped her hands. 

Sascha blinks, the other woman’s worry curling around her. The changeling healer knows nothing specific on Psy. But Sascha is Pack, and even if she hadn’t been, Sascha thinks Tammy would want to heal her regardless; she can remember how inviting and warm her reception had been the first time Lucas had taken her to the healer’s house. 

Tammy wants to wants to help her. The frustration comes from not knowing how and not being able to do more. 

“It’s wonderful,” Sascha says, trying to inflect kindness and layers to her voice. “Thank you. There has been no brain damage. Truly it is just that I need to eat. You have been more than enough.” 

That tension dissipates, though Tammy still watches her with a tilted head and slight frown. “Eat all of it. I’ll bring you the broth later.” 

“That would be nice. I would appreciate that.” 

Laughing, Tammy unravels her hands and waves her fingers in the space between them. “You’re Pack, Sascha. Anything you need I would give.”

The healer makes her eat all of the pasta and the banana before she leaves. 

 

 

 

When Tammy finally relents and lets her go, Sascha relaxes back against the cushions and closes her eyes. 

She doesn’t actually need to see Lucas pulling himself over the ledge and entering the aerie. She can hear him, his barefeet heavy on the wood flooring, his low breathing. She can feel him too, right there in her chest, a warm spot that flares too bright. 

It makes a part of her ache. Having slept and eaten, she is reminded now of what she’d tried not to think on this morning. The brightness of the bond is a lie. Her energy may be restoring her abilities and her psychic levels, but they are also leeching off of him.

She is killing him. 

Because he bonded them. 

The kindness from Tammy, the promise of Pack, the greenery of the aerie, the place that is supposed to be theirs now, and her mate across from her. All of it is beautiful to her. Made more so because there’s a ticking countdown in the back of her mind. 

Lucas drops to the cushions next to her, a solid presence and smelling of the forest. He leans close and touches the end of her braid, fingering the slips of hair that have fallen out. “Doing better?” 

Sascha opens her eyes and turns her head to look at him. Seriousness in his gaze and the lines that bracket his mouth. “I told you I only needed food. You worry for nothing.” 

“You’re my mate. I’m supposed to take care of you. I’m meant to do so.” He presses closer, the panther lurking behind his gaze, and his knee touches her own. Touch, trying to anchor himself. 

Her eyebrows pinch together, a frown forming. “You cannot ignore what I know about myself.” 

He may be alpha but even before she has never folded under him. She will not do so now. Psy families are born of contracts, but even then there is equality in partnership. She cannot believe that an alpha and his mate would be anything less than that basic foundation. 

A grin flirts with the corners of his mouth up. He pulls on her braid, a quick tug. “Even you don’t know about your abilities.” 

Her face must betray her glower because he smooths the crease on her forehead. His fingers slide down the side of her face, a petting caress. “You’re still angry at me.” 

She still does not know how to cry. Wetness pools in her eyes anyway. It stings, and this anger is not the anger of yelling. It’s different and she’s finding emotions to be very exhausting. “Yes,” she says on a shaky exhale. “I am,” pausing to find the right word. “Furious at you.”

Green eyes roll with luminescence, the panther shining through for a moment. “I know. I can feel it.” 

Sascha doesn’t apologize. She lets him hold her weight though, leaning against him. He’s comforting. “I’ve traded one death for another.” 

His hand falls to settle on the curve of her waist, palm heavy. “But you have me. We’re together.” 

_What does together even mean_ is what she wants to ask. Her eyelids are heavy though and she falls back asleep under the steady thrum of his heartbeat. 

 

 

 

Perhaps she should have asked.

Because they don’t bring it up for the next several days. 

Sascha cannot go back into the city. She cannot go much of anywhere. There is no telling who wants to kill her, and her shielding has not repaired itself fully yet. 

She spends the time trying to change them in a way that will better serve her empathic nature. There are many reasons why she cannot be exposed forever to others’ emotions. It is improper, a violation of privacy. For another, she is too much like an exposed nerve now. Too many emotions will drown her. Changelings are emotional beings, and while she is wondrous at learning all of the facets of their lives and learning emotions herself, she needs a steeper curve to do so. On the Net she’d been a master at shielding. Now, she applies the same technique, only refining. 

Lucas only leaves once and that’s because he goes to talk to his sentinels. When he does, he leaves her with both Tammy and Mercy. Tammy who brings her the ingredients to make the broth herself and Mercy who brings her clothes so she doesn’t have to wear her suits. 

Other than that, it is just the two of them in the aerie. 

Though she’s shielded herself, Sascha can feel the bond and feel Lucas’s apprehension and annoyance. The feelings are an echo of her own. 

It is a strange thing, neither of them choosing to discuss what lingers unsaid between them. 

There’s only so much they can do and pretend. 

 

 

 

Lucas relents and leaves her to do business in the city. There are certain things that require him to be at the DarkRiver headquarters. She points out that he cannot simply give up his business duties to stay by her side. She will be fine for a few hours alone; truthfully, she wants the hours alone.

“You and your Psy logic,” he says before going, kissing her quick. 

Sascha’s left standing, thinking on the feel of his mouth against hers. It is the first time they have done that since she helped Brenna awake. They have touched. They have slept next to one another, Lucas’s arm around her waist and their feet tangled together. But they have not kissed or touched in any further intimate manner. 

Touch, she’s beginning to learn, has many different meanings to the changelings. The brushes of his knuckles against her cheek stands for one thing, while a kiss on the lips entirely something else. There’s the reassuring touch of a palm on her back or her leaning against him. Skin privileges are layered and complex. 

It’s all together very confusing, but she’s beginning to sort it out. 

It’s why she likes the times when she is alone. She loves Lucas, but she’s still trying to navigate this limbo between the two races she’s stuck in. He makes it both easier and more difficult. A paradoxical statement that is true regardless. When it’s just her, she can think and sift through, make her own deductions. 

Lucas returns when she’s just finished taking a shower. 

In the bedroom of the aerie, the sun long having set and the windows open to the night air, he goes to her immediately. Wraps his arms around her while she’s still wearing a towel, her skin warm from the shower. 

As he rests the side of his face against her wet hair, Sascha maneuvers an arm so she can stroke the nape of his neck. Pushes aside sweaty dark strands and scratches her nails on his skin. It’s a soothing gesture she hopes. “Lucas?” she asks, confused at the tangle of feelings from his end of the bond. 

He holds her tighter, pulls her against him, and there’s a desperation in the way he does it. 

She repeats his name and adds, “Are you alright?” 

That gets him to relent, easing his hold and taking a step back. The muscles of his face are strained, the lines on the side pulled tight. A snarl at the edge of his mouth and something of the animal in his gaze. She feels along the bond, reaching out as well with her abilities, taking what she can identify as anger and frustration and so many others away from him. Just as she’d done with Dorian, she does so now. 

“Sascha,” Lucas says, a bite in her name from his mouth. The tension leaks away from his body, a visible thing she can see as his face softens and shoulders drop.

She shakes her head, not allowing him to speak further on her using her empathic nature. “It’s easy to take that from you. Am I not allowed to take care of you?” 

“Not when it hurts you.” A flat mouthed answer, green eyes staring down at her. 

Shifting on her bare feet, toes scraping across the wooden flooring, she narrows her own gaze up at him. “It doesn’t. I told you you cannot tell me more about my abilities than me.” 

There’s no response to that he can give her, nothing that wouldn’t say that he doesn’t trust her enough, which is the problem possibly. He is stubborn. Far too much so. 

Sascha presses her knuckles into his neck, reaching up with her other hand to hold her towel around her. This is a strange conversation to be having wearing only this, she thinks. “Will you tell me what happened?” 

He blinks, that hard edge creeping back over his mouth. A spike of anger across the bond. “Your dropping out of the Net has people still talking.” 

That answer doesn’t bring forth any surprise in her. She knew it to be so. Her mother had disowned her publicly, a conversation that had been unsurprising either but still hurtful. Her actions, leaving the Net and mating with a changeling, are a smack in the fact to the Council. To all of their power and authority. She doesn’t need much time to conjure up examples of what is no doubt being said about her. 

“What I did is unforgivable to them. They cannot understand. The Council will never say otherwise either.”

Lucas’s eyes roll with that luminescent green. “Fuck them. I won’t have them saying that about you.” 

His vehemence warms her, a giddiness settling over her. He’s fierce in his love for her, matched by her own for him. 

“They’re not here. They cannot touch me.” One thing Sascha is certain of is that if she’s only to have these few moments before they die, it will not be under the fear of retribution from her race. “They don’t get to have us.” 

He smiles, the first time he’s done so truly in some time, and leans down to kiss her. “I love you.” 

A statement bolstered by the love that he sends across the bond. She lets it wrap around her, holding it to her. She wonders if she holds him tight enough she can will them to live. A foolish notion, the still wholly Psy part of her brain says. But one she wants to believe in. 

“Clay’s taking care of it. Better him than me.” He rubs his palm against her hip. 

Sascha thinks on that choice, parsing out what she remembers of Clay’s position in DarkRiver’s company besides just as sentinel. “You cannot push them too much.” 

“It’s just a reminder,” he says as if their last reminder to the Council wasn’t the severed body parts of Santano delivered to each member. 

She’s distracted from that line of thinking when his hand slides from her hip to her stomach, heavy and warm through the cloth of the towel. When he leans down to inhale against the side of her neck, lips close, she steps back. “No.” 

Lucas stills, watching as she puts several feet between them. He doesn’t follow. Just tilts his head to the side. 

She has parsed out touch and its meanings. Knows the difference between comfort and sexual, even if she is not familiar with all of how it works. She’s a novice still, but she knows. Comfort she can give. She will never deny him that, and truthfully she’s greedy for it herself. 

But sexual intercourse, when still she is angry at him and confused, when still they tiptoe around one another and leave too much unsaid, that she will not give. If he will not talk to her and understand what she means, then she will not budge. 

It’s a disappointment when he doesn’t rise to the bait, doesn’t press the issue and initiate the conversation they need to have. Instead, he bows his head, and says, “Alright.” 

She’s left without words and only feelings that sit heavy inside of her. 

 

 

 

“My mother has contracts she wants me to take a look at.” 

Nikita had disowned her, but she has said the construction endeavor would continue, as well as any future business arrangements with DarkRiver. Her mother would never allow a business opportunity, an economic opportunity, to fail simply because Sascha did not live up to her standards. 

It has been over two weeks since that meeting with her mother, and this is the first she’s gotten something. 

“It would seem,” Sascha continues, glancing through the documents on her datapad. “That she meant what she said about continuing the operations with me as contact point.” 

Lucas shifts onto his side in their bed. He’d been looking over his own documents from the headquarters. A very domestic site he’d teased her, the two of them in bed doing business. “Are you okay, kitten?” 

It is automatic for her to open her mouth and say “no”. For many years she had lived with the fact that she is a disappointment to her race, a Cardinal with no strength. Now, she knows it to be a lie. However, telling herself that, even after only a few weeks of dropping out of the Net and leaving her race, presents difficulty. 

Her throat tightens, the datapad in her hands and her mother’s curt formal message there. Her fingers shake and her eyes sting. Working her throat and tongue, she says quietly into the dim light of their room, “I hurt.” 

Love curls around her through the bond, the press of Lucas’s emotions against her skin, crowding through her shields. “Sascha,” and where her voice had been devoid of intonation, his conveys everything that she cannot do just yet. 

“Will you hold me?” she asks, a twisting need gnawing at her. 

Lucas curses low and then reaches for her, pulling her easily into his arms. He shifts them down till they’re both horizontal on the bed. Her head rests on his chest, listening to the thump of his heartbeat. 

She feels her tears wet his shirt as he strokes from the crown of her head down to the end of her braid. Over and over again as she cries. She has only ever cried a few times in her life. Psy do not cry, and certainly they would label it a weakness. To be so exposed.

“I am sorry I am so difficult,” she says and her voice wobbles, thick and uneven. 

“Never apologize,” he growls, the panther in his voice suddenly. He moves his hand so he can tug her head up and they are looking in the eye. “Never apologize to me. Not for this.”

Hands curling and uncurling in the cotton of his shirt, Sascha tries to dry her eyes. At least long enough to say, “I thought you would be mad.” 

Confusion spikes the air and his forehead wrinkles. The side of his mouth pulls down. “Mad at what?” 

“At me for not wanting to engage in sex. And then wanting you to hold me.” 

He strokes the length of her braid again, rubbing her temples when he passes back up again. “I’m not mad at that, Sascha. I understand. I will never deny you this.” 

In the same way that she’s never pulled from his touch either. 

“Never,” he repeats and holds her as she cries over the mother who sees her only as a business contact now.

 

 

 

She practices her shielding and abilities on Lucas first. 

Which makes sense. They are mated, connected, and she trusts him implicitly. They are together most often than anyone else. She has not introduced herself to every Pack member. In fact, she has not spent much time with anyone outside of the Sentinels and Tammy. 

She wants to, she needs to, but she is uncertain about how well she will do in a crowd given that her empathic nature has awoken and is always active. Hers is not a passive ability. Though she can shield herself, be selective in not stealing people’s emotions and information, she cannot turn it off.

Sascha sits cross legged across from him on the large cushions in the sitting area. She’s gotten better at sitting on them without pitching sideways. A fact that makes her mate laugh every time she does slide off; relaxation is something she is learning as well.

“You are tired,” she says, concentrating on sorting through his emotions. 

She treats it just as she did when she was taught things in the Net: categorizing and processing, everything in its own place with a definition. The lethargy and weariness is fatigue. The ache and stretched out feeling from the exertion of muscles. 

When she tries to pull all of that into her, it makes her exhale shakily, her own limbs feeling heavier immediately. 

“From running,” Lucas says, eyeing her but not moving to contradict or tell her to stop. It is an improvement on his earlier behavior. 

She shakes her head, unbound curls settling around her shoulders and down her back. “You like to run.” 

“I do,” he grins. “Do you?” 

Another problem they’d discovered with her. It is too easy for her to leech of the emotions of those around her and accept them as her own. If she does not parse them out, then her brain takes them in as what she herself feels. An unending loop between Lucas and she. It is difficult for her to decide things on her on as a result. 

Sascha thinks for a moment and then frowns. “No. Exercise is a part of our routines, to promote health and fitness, but I did not enjoy it.” 

“I like you the way you are.” His grin widens. The truth as he’d said many times in their shared dreams how much he loved her body. 

She doesn’t rise to the tease, even if it makes her smile. Instead, she continues on, wanting to learn more, as she shifts through more of his emotions; such a complicated process since she’d been finding that no person who did feel ever felt one thing at a time. “Do you do it for exercise?” 

Lucas leans back against the cushions, a complete feline move. His bare feet attract her attention for a moment. “In part, I guess. As alpha I have to be strong. Sometimes I need to run alone for me. But sometimes it’s for company.” 

She pauses, curious. “You run with packmates?” 

He nods. “It helps me bond with them. Keep an eye on them too. And it’s fun.” 

Her nose wrinkles at that last part. How it could be _fun_ , she’s not sure. “It is important to bond with packmates. So they trust you.” 

“And as friends.” 

She hums at that, turning her psychic eye back to her abilities. 

“You could do that too,” he says, stretching out his sweatpant clad legs. 

“Run?” 

“No,” he laughs. “You don’t like it. But you could do something else with them.” 

“Oh,” she sighs. Part of her is relieved that he’s picked up on an apprehension of hers. She gets along with Tammy easily. The two of them are close, and she thinks the healer will be the next one she practices her abilities on. The Sentinels she wants to know more, wants them to trust her too, wants to be there for them like Lucas is. And the rest of the Pack as well.

“They will love you just as much as I do.” 

Pride overtakes the bond, thrumming along that link. That she knows she likes. 

 

 

 

Sascha does not like fighting. 

It has been an ongoing thing, this tension between them. A fight without actual words and true exchanges of anger. 

Until now. 

It blows up because SnowDancer asks her to help with Brenna. She’s awake, but hurting. Hawke asks Lucas personally, calling one afternoon and saying they could really use her help. That Brenna has asked for her too, hesitantly, but asked. 

Like before, Sascha cannot say no. 

Lucas feels otherwise. “It nearly wiped you out last time.” 

She inhales deep through her nose, hands fisted at her sides. There’s a part of her that recognizes the anger in her is a reflection of his where he paces around the aerie. Then there is the part that is herself and her fury. “I am going to help her.”

“No-”

“You can’t do this, Lucas,” and she’s shouting now. 

He freezes, coming to a halt in his pacing. His jaw flexes, mouth hard. “Mad at me again?” 

“Yes. Because you don’t listen. Just like before.” 

A snarl twists his lips. “I won’t say sorry for saving your life. Not ever. You’re mine.” 

Sascha takes a step forward, grinding her teeth. Adrenaline thrums through her. “But I am my own too. You have to trust me when it comes to what I can do.” 

“I do, Sascha-”

She cuts him off again, waving a hand between them. This fight has been building up and she will not quiet it now. “No you don’t. You never have.”

The anger bleeds from his end of the bond, replaced by a quietness and empty bleakness. The lines of his face are frozen, as if she’d hurt him physically. 

She breathes in and out for a moment, settling herself. When she talks next, her voice is more even, but no less sure. “I’m yours, Lucas, but you’re mine too. We’re partners. I might be learning about myself, and I want to learn with you, but you can’t tell me no when it comes to what I know about my abilities. I am not weak. I am not nothing. You have to trust me.” 

Lucas exhales, hesitating for a second. His shoulders drop, his posture slumping. His voice is tired when he speaks, raspy. “I do, Sascha. We are partners. I want to take care of you. It’s in my nature.” 

“And it’s in mine to help others.” She closes the distance between them, reaching for his hands, wanting to touch him. She twines their fingers together, peering up at him. Their legs knock together. “I love you. I want you to take care of me. I want to take care of you. Can we not do it together?”

He pulls his hands away, and for a moment she’s afraid he will pull back, but it’s only so he can cup her face. Leaning down, he rests his forehead against hers. “Yes. I’m sorry, Sascha.” 

She is under no illusion that they will change overnight, but it is a start and hope. Hope that she can cling to and wrap around her just as she says, “I love you, Lucas.”

 

 

 

“Will you tell me about your family yourself?” Sascha asks two nights later as they rest in bed. She’s draped over the warm bare chest of her mate, tracing designs on his skin. 

Lucas opens his eyes, green slits, and his chest rumbles under her. Her mate is a lazy cat far too often. She enjoys the noises she drags from him. “Tammy already told you.” 

They’ve been exchanging stories. Ever since they met truly, but there’s no need to barter for information in a tit-for-tat manner any longer. They trade just to trade now. 

She presses her nails into his skin, a little bite. “I want to hear from you. Unless you don’t want to tell me.”

He’s silent for a long pause. The only sounds their breathing and the forest outside. Then, he strokes the skin of her back, just where his shirt rides up that she’d put on. “No, I want to tell you.” 

She listens as he tells her about his parents being killed by the roaming clan, about him being caught and hurt for days, about how he’d survived and waited till he turned eighteen to avenge them. When he is done, they’ve moved so that she holds him. 

Sascha folds this information into a sacred part of her heart. It is where she has kept everything about him. It is where she goes when she remembers that they do not have much longer to live. That surely any day now they will die. It is where she goes when wants to remember him and that they have at least been given this. 

She strokes a hand along his scalp. Her fingers tunnel into his hair, pushing the strands back. “Tell me about when you were younger. When you were little.”

He pauses again, and she can feel his confusion for a moment, but then he starts again. Stories of when his parents were alive. Of time spent learning from his father and afternoons with his mother. Easier and lighter memories. 

She holds him and listens and files those away too.

 

 

 

Sascha can do nothing but cry at the Web of Stars. 

“It’s everything,” she tells Lucas as he kisses her, unable to look away from the colorful connections. 

For days she will turn her psychic eye to it so she can look at it. To make sure it is real. 

The Web of Stars holds though, tying them all together. The Sentinels to Lucas, Lucas to her, the Sentinels to her, and every Packmate. Her heart swells with the thought of it all. It makes her whole to have them all.

It is beautiful. It is life. It is theirs. 

“A lifetime,” Lucas says after they meet with the Sentinels and Tammy.

A lifetime to learn and grow, to have him and all of their fights and makeups, to exist. Hope no longer seems like something she has to dream of. Now she can be.

They will.


End file.
